>> it's hard, 'cause some people have gone through unfair things. but i think you have to realize you're forgiving for yourself and not the other person. >> brian: i hope the wiggles forgive us. 'cause we had to postpone them. thanks, joel. bill: quite a couch. like it. good morning, everybody. shutdown theater, day three, drop the curtain. of the congressional leaders coming together at emergency meeting at the white house but president singing the same song on stage. there is no negotiating. there is no deal. so what now? i'm bill hemmer. hold your hat for another day of drama. welcome to "america's newsroom." how are you doing? martha: i'm doing well. good morning, bill. hey, everybody, i'm martha maccallum. we're three days in and the divide between democrats and republicans couldn't be more clear. here is john boehner and harry reid after last night's ditched meeting at white house. watch this. >> the president reiterated one more time tonight he will not negotiate. we've got divided government. democrats control the white house and the senate.

republicans control the house. we sent four different proposals over to the democrat colleagues in the senate. they rejected all of them. we asked for a conference to sit down and try to resolve our differences. they don't, they will not negotiate. >> i said happy to work with you mr. speaker on a way out of this but we are where we are. we're through playing these little games on, it is all focused on obamacare. that is all it's about. bill: that from last night. now we move to today. doug mckelway live from the hill again leading our coverage from there. doug, at the moment is there a way out of this? >> reporter: bill, it is really hard to say. there is some speculation that there an escape route. it would come in the form of a grand bargain that would incorporate all the present crises from the continuing resolution, government shutdown to the impending debt ceiling which we hit on october 17th. these discussions apparently low-key, they're behind the scenes, largely being contained

to republicans but that's what we know about it this morning. on the way up here riding in the elevator i shared the elevator with connecticut senator richard blumenthal. i showed him the headline in "politico", talk on the hill, grand bargain. do you know anything about it is. is this true? if it is true, i don't know anything about it. what we're hearing not everybody is privy to these talks if it has any legs at all, bill. bill: so then we look for signs of progress or do we find any signs of progress there, doug? >> reporter: no signs of progress we're hearing from any other venue and i think that was clearly demonstrated in the white house meeting when the congressional leaders, reid, boehner, pelosi and mcconnell came out last night and spoke to the cameras. here is senator reid. >> we have the debt ceiling staring us in the face and he wants to talk about a short-term cr? i thought that they were

concerned about the long-term fiscal affairs of this country. we said, we are too. let's talk about it. my friend, john boehner, i repeat, can not take yes for an answer. >> we have appointed conferees on the house side to sit down to work with the senate colleagues. it is time for them to appoint conferees. >> reporter: yesterday before that meeting apparently reid sent a message to boehner saying that the senate would be willing to appoint conferees if the house would adopt a clean cr. the response from boehner's office, a statement from michael steele, his spokesman which read and i quote. offering to negotiate only after democrats get everything they want is not much of an offer. so, bill, we are a long way from resolution here. bill: doug, thank you. we'll come back to you for headlines. there will be some throughout the morning here. we'll wait on those. thank you, doug. here's martha. martha: meanwhile president obama not budging claiming in a new interview he already gone

above and beyond the call of duty in working with the other side. watch. >> during the course of my presidency i have bent over backwards to work with the republican party and have purposely kept my rhetoric down. i think i'm pretty well-known for being a calm guy. sometimes people think i'm too calm, and, am i exasperated? absolutely i'm exasperated because this is entirely unnecessary. martha: interesting. is that true? has the white house really bent over backwards to work with republicans during this presidency? we'll talk to congresswoman michele bachmann about that. she will join us in a couple minutes. bill: meantime senator rand paul has an idea, telling fox news last night he has a solution that might finally help bring an end to the shutdown and it has to do with caffeine. >> we're going to have coffee tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. on the steps. i think really people think this is one party or the other.

my understanding is the american people are frustrated with both parties not talking and i think there is some symbolism to it and we can also have coffee and talk about what the final position both would accept in order to get there? bill: that coffee may keep them up later, working longer. that meeting expected at 11:00 a.m. this morning. we'll see what happens in washington. martha: lawmakers are starting to pitch in to keep offices running. senator joe manchin, is, look at these pictures, there is simply no one out there to do it. west virginia democrat taking calls from constituents. reports don't believe it is him. reports are rampant on the hill, offices closed and no one answering. they used to answer their own phones. they used to have a tiny office building, there is more of that, some other offices. despite the shutdown, members of congress are still legally entitled to a paycheck. average salary for a lawmaker?

$174,000 a year. there are 535 members of congress. as of today 108 either refused to get paid during the shutdown or decided to donate their paycheck to charity. that breaks down now to 56 republicans, 52 democrats, if you're keeping score at home. it appears today that they are further apart than they were yesterday and the day before that as well. and on the calendar you've got the debt ceiling coming up. martha: that is exactly right. bill: another day we've been circling. that is october 17th. martha: may be republicans have the two-week date in their mind. they're willing to hang in for two weeks. they want this to come to a debt ceiling discussion. they feel like that might be the only card in the game. we'll talk to a bunch of folks who will weigh in on it. how about this fox news alert for you this morning? more fallout from obamacare, we learn millions of americans are being met with glitches and delays as they try to sign up in

the online exchanges. peter doocy is looking at this live in our d.c. bureau. how are things looking, peter? >> reporter: not much better, martha. this morning half an hour ago i've been doing the same thing since the launch and went to healthcare.gov around clicked on the link to every single one of these 36 states and not one link went through. they said to wait or i will lose my place in line. selecting the state is the most basic thing consumers trying to apply for a new plan can do. three days into open enrollment, zero states on the federal exchange are easily accessible and experts are warning it could be quite a while longer before things get better. >> it's going to take a while, a month or two months to really figure out how popular this is going to be and whether they can work out the technological kinks which frankly i think will last for some time. >> reporter: since its monday morning launch, healthcare.gov

has received 6.1 million hits from people across the country. to put that in perspective, google gets more than five billion hits every day. martha: wow, that's interesting. what is the administration telling people, peter, if they can't get through? what should they do? >> reporter: they are saying it is okay to wait. consumers have until the middle of december to enroll and get covered bit 1st of january but that officials are working right now to fix these widespread technical problems. martha: just one more quickie, peter -- >> i say two things. it is as i mentioned a good problem to have, that interest in these first two days is bigger than anticipated and we have, you know, an extremely competent team that developed a very user-friendly website and they are working on these problems every day and the process gets, improved every day >> reporter: many who had luck with the website so far are

beginning to learn they may be paying $500 a health care before benefits start taking in. martha? martha: peter, quick question. they encouraged people to do the one-on-one and paper form. any indication yet, maybe you have to find out for us, how that's going? >> reporter: so far it is kind of all across the map. there was one report yesterday in the "washington post" that said that 50 people showed up to one of those in-person sites in texas and none of them had an email address, which you need to sign up. i know that also the administration has been trying to drive people to the 800 number that exists for people who have questions. i have been calling that and it is completely hit or miss. sometimes it's a 30-minute wait. sometimes you get right through but the website is having some significant problems still this morning, martha. martha: peter, thank you. bill: fascinating to watch the thing roll out. who knows where we'll be in a week's time or even a month's time. we'll watch that.

they saved their lives to fight for the country and no one was going to tell them they couldn't visit their memorial. we'll talk to one veteran who went to the world war ii memorial. how does he see the country. martha: a trip to gospel event turns to a tragedy for a church group. what police say caused this awful crash. bill: shutdown turning nasty. democrats unleashing on the floor of the house. wait until you hear this. we'll ask congresswoman michele bachmann to respond to this statement. >> he was prepared to sacrifice the local economy. he was prepared to sacrifice the towns around yosemite when he was on jihad against american citizens getting access to health care! before the last grandchild. before the first grandchild. smile. before katie, debbie, kevin and brad...

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martha: all right. there is some weather out there to be aware of. hurricane watches are in effect for parts of the gulf coast after tropical storm karen formed this morning. she is packing winds up to

60 miles per hour and moving north at this hour. forecasters say she could reach the coast this weekend. we'll continue to track tropical storm karin for you and let you. bill: day three on the hill takeing a nasty turn. last night a critical democrat, a key democrat close with pell pell unloading on republicans from the floor -- nancy pelosi. >> did you think about the parks when you voted to shut down the government? did you think about the impact, the gentleman from montana yesterday came to the floor and said it is hurting the local economy. the gentleman from california came and said the towns around yosemite. was he thinking about that when he voted originally to shut down the government? he was prepared to sacrifice the local economy. he was prepared to sacrifice the towns around yosemite when he was on the jihad against the american citizens getting access to health care. >> you know what word stuck out on that comment there, jihad. republican congresswoman michele bachmann is back with us and

good morning to you. >> good morning, bill. bill: what did you think when you heard of that? >> it is part and parcel what we've been hearing for the last days. all this out of control rhetoric. that was day two of republican shutdown where republicans are called terrorists by people across the aisle. these are the same people who republicans had an open room and open table. we said please come in and talk to us. we have conferees on this by let's talk like adults like people who sent us here and get to yes for the american people. instead they're taking to the floor and calling the other side, jihadists. so where do you go with that? because we put down offer after offer saying, how about this? how about that? then we decided, if we can't talk about what we disagree on, how about if we vote on bills that we do agree on? and they aren't willing to vote for something as simple askancer research for children with cancer. or for keeping the world war ii

memorial open. we're trying everything that we can, bill to get them to talk to us and this is the kind of language we're being subjected to. bill: i'm reading that there are more bills coming up today, to fund the department of veterans affairs and national guard. we'll see how that vote goes then. mike simpson, republican from idaho, when that comment was dropped by jihad, he went to the microphone and said he was disgusted. now the president gave an interview yesterday afternoon, said he has been bending over backwards to work with republicans. and that he has kept his own rhetoric to a minimum. what do you think about that? >> well, first of all unfortunately the president has been missing in action throughout most of this process. he has, very rarely picked up the phone and called john boehner. we all knew we were coming to this point. september 30th has been on the calendar for long, long time and i think the president felt he could have brinkmanship. he was used to having his way. he would just say something and it would happen and he didn't

think he had to work with republicans at all. and i think what is really remarkable, bill, is that there is a lot of disagreement over obamacare. but you know the president has done something very unusual, he himself has changed obamacare 19 different times. it is as though he passed 19 different laws himself. he is expecting republicans to fund not the original obamacare, but, which we passed, but, fund the obamacare that he himself has changed. now that is really bizarre. we need to have a president who recognizes the rule of law, who works with us because the american people didn't just elect the president, they also elected their representatives and they're expecting us to talk. bill: i will run through a couple quick things in the next minute or some the republicans appear united. there was a democratic effort to shut down ending legislation and every republican voted against that. are there any cracks in the ranks today?

>> i would say we're pretty unified. it has been amazing so far. i have to tell you the tables are turning, despite the fact that most of the mainstream media says it is a republican's fault, it is the, the, it is turning now, the tide in washington, d.c. the american people are seeing that we are trying to get to yes with the democrats and the democrats are standing in the corner with their arms crossed saying no. bill: how much longer? >> well, we have until october 17th. that is when the debt ceiling is reached. we may have a grand bargain between both the debt ceiling and funding the government. so it depend. if president obama won't come to the table, what can we do? bill: is this how this ends an agreement on both mid-october? >> if the president won't talk we may have to get to october 17th. hopefully they will sit down and start to talk. bill: michele bachmann, thank you for your time. we'll talk soon. 19 past. here is martha. martha: remember this?

a passenger captured his very bumpy ride on a southwest flight. next, what happened to the pilot who was flying that plane. >> wow. a group of world war ii veterans refused to be shut out by the shutdown. we'll speak live with one of the greatest generation, one of those from the greatest generation who are helping break down even more barriers. he is live in a moment. >> they told us not to touch any of the barricades or anything but i would have pushed them aside with the rest of them. i won't let a bunch of dumb congressman stop us and that's what they are. they're dumb. , we can. and glad forceflex bags stretch until they're full.* so you can take them out less often.

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martha: they simply refused to take no for an answer. for the second day in a row of group of world war ii vets

literally took down a barrier blocking off the world war ii memorial in washington, d.c. that had been sealed off because of the government shutdown. look at the moving pictures of these veterans, shaking hand and carrying in the flags from their service. it was really quite a moment. and they did get some help from members congress to make that trip easier, given this whole shutdown. there is roy blount in that piece of video. not everyone really saw it that way. listen to this. >> i was disappointed to think we might not see we would see it. i appreciate the courage of our congresspeople as they made a way for us. >> it's crazy seeing those people out there wanting to come in and can't come in and then you meet the senators or representatives that are out here and they're the ones that are causing the damn problem to start with. martha: there you go, right? joining us now is a world war ii veteran who was there yesterday. ben arkis.

ben, thank you so much for talking with us and thank you for your service during world war ii. it is an honor to have you with us today. >> thank you. martha: tell as you little bit, good morning, sir. tell us a little bit about your thoughts when you heard this memorial was closed off? >> it didn't seem possible that they would reject the movement of veterans, the average age of the veterans is about 91, 92 years old and they all served but it was a wonderful experience. the, the volunteers, transfer the enthusiasm so the veterans and we were very, very well-received. it was an experience that, it is very difficult to describe. and the, going to the washington, d.c. we were supplied with wheelchairs. went to the memorial museum and we had wheelchairs there and all

of us needed them. and it was a very wonderful, wonderful affair. martha: that's great. ben, this was your first visit to see the memorial. had you been planning this for a while? >> no. two friend of mine, david marks and mark barney, convinced me to go. and two other friend went two years ago and they raved how wonderful it was and it was really a wonderful experience. martha: it is truly, it's such a moving place to visit for all of us. i've been there with my family. so many people across the country but for you, obviously having served during world war ii, it must have been very moving. i'm curious what you think about all this hubbub about closing down these memorials, and this one is now open thanks to the controversy that surrounded it but what are your thoughts on the whole shutdown of the government? >> it is, it's a very unusual

situation. it you should never happen. it's turning, the country into a tremendous turmoil. they have got to do something to solve this crazy problem. and -- martha: what did you think of the fact that some of the vets when they first arrived they were met with the barricades and guards, originally, and some had planned these trips for a long time and took, a lot went into it? >> oh, you can't believe the planning to get into this program. there were 93 veterans on that plane. must have been a 56 guardians or helpers on the plane to help us. they had doctors and they had nurses. and then when we got to the location, some more volunteers helped. it was approximately one-on-one in coverage for the veterans.

and we got to the museum and had this obstacle. it was unbelievable. martha: yeah, i can imagine. >> there were very, the group was very forceful and they convinced the people in charge that we had to go in. and they, rescinded the order and we went in. martha: it is unconscionable there would have ever been a question as to whether or not this group of veterans would be allowed to go into this open-air, beautiful memorial that you, many of whom had planned it for such a long time. ben, thank you so much for speaking with us. i'm very glad you got that opportunity to be there because you certainly deserve to have that moment in your life, to witness that really stunning memorial to you and all of the people who fought with you in world war ii. we thank you again sir for your service and thank you so much for talking with us today. it is our pleasure to have you on the show. thank you, ben. >> thank you very much. bill: he is a sweet man, huh?

thank you, ben. what do you think at home. is there a better way way out of this then keeping veterans out of their own memorial? twitter lines are open, @billhemmer, @marthamaccallum. ben, thank you. that was sweet. he was telling you during the commercial break it was the greatest moment of his life. martha: it was the greatest moment of his life. it brings tears to your eyes. >> who is: running the show, that anybody would think putting up a barricade at that memorial, and any other really, in the past, according to a piece i saw daily caller, the mem r memorials were off limits. why would this time that not be the case. common sense prevails and doors are open to honor flights. bill: thank you, ben. martha: thank you, ben. there are new reports of parks shutting down though that do not even receive any federal funding. they're privately-funded. why would that be?

new questions about whether democrats are trying to make the shutdown hurt on purpose. we'll talk about that. bill: check it out, martha. a daredevil completes a truly death-defying stunt. that is jeff coral list. he will join us in a moment. how he pulled this off. cool. ♪ too big. too small. too soft. too tasty. [ both laugh ] [ male announcer ] introducing progresso's new creamy alfredo soup. inspired by perfection.

bill: 9:32 in new york. want to bring a fox news alert. an accident involveing a church bus in tennessee. this is serious. at least eight people are dead. police say the bus overturned on i-40 yesterday, crashing into a tractor-trailer and suv. church members trying to make sense how this happened. >> we had a group of seniors called the young at hearts that were returning home from gatlin berg, tennessee. they were there at a conference. we do know that there were several that went on to be with the lord. >> hurt a little bit, and get over it, that's fine. but as far as getting killed, hard to take. >> yeah. we're gathering the latest on this, to try to figure out what

happened and trying to bring some consolation to these people in tennessee. we'll bring awe live report a bit late they are morning. >> sad story. in the meantime let's get back to this topic for today. several republican lawmakers are accusing democrats of intentionally trying to make the government shutdown as painful as possible for people, betting that republicans will get the blame in the end. for example lawmakers claim that the obama administration is selectively shutting down national parks, focusing on the parks and monuments that are highly visible to the public. i'm joined by steven sigman for former new jersey governor, john corzine. monica crowley, radio talk show host and fox news contributor. welcome back, monica, steven, great to have you with us this morning. thanks a lot. there is one situation, steven a claude moore cologne y'all moore is privately funded farm was shutdown. this is not federally funded.

why would you do that and why would you allow the veterans situation so far. >> what is allowing the veterans situation and all the situations is not manufactured pain. it is actual pain being caused by irresponsible government shutdown that the congressional republicans have insisted upon because of their obsession with obamacare. i mean there is real pain going on here. there are 800,000 people out of work. $300 million a day in economic losses. if this goes on two weeks, moody's says it will cost the economy 1.5% in growth in the fourth quarter alone. so this isn't manufactured pain about some gates and someplaces. it is real pain, widespread and caused by the congressional republicans who -- bill: you do make -- martha: you do make choice what is you will do. there are choices what will happen and won't happen. >> they made choices about essential versus nonessential. >> first of all a government is supposed to prioritize when things like this happen. i dispute your premise this is all the fault of the

republicans. the republican house put out bill after bill, compromise after compromise to fund this government and congressional, rather the senate democrats and president obama said no to all of it. when you get into situation like this government is supposed to prioritize. what we found out, martha, 93% of the epa is considered none essential. 94% of the department of education is considered nonessential. why don't you trim the fat before you stop having 90-year-old world war ii vets being prevented access to the world war ii memorial. what this has done, the president obama, democrats, denied access. shut down the national parks. they're doing it all deliberately to inflict maximum pain on the american people so they can get the visual, so the mead waa will cover it. so pressure will be brought to bear on republicans. >> it seems to work to a certain extent, stephen. we saw a similar tactic during the sequester. we remember this quote, that we have from an agriculture agency where the, one of the managers there requested, you know, can i

use the money that i have in a different way to make it a little easier for my department. this is what he got back from, from the administration. it is our opinion however you manage your reduction you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be. are we seeing that again is the question? >> no. what you're seeing, you're see something real pain. seeing 800,000 people across the board laid off and you're seeing real consequences from it. look, not just democrats who are saying this is irresponsible and that is congressional republicans and not just irresponsible policy but bad politics. karl rove saying it. "wall street journal" editorial board. u.s. chamber of commerce. all three republican candidates right now in their elections in virginia and new york and new jersey all saying that this is a bad idea. martha: one thing that's weird, and it happened during the sequester too, everybody said the sky sky would fall. then it would be so awful. leaves people scratching their heads maybe we can survive okay without some of these agencies and some of these employees even

because we have things that can be cut. i don't know, you guys do we have this sound bite on the markets? and the president? all right, so, the president was interviewed yesterday on cnbc and he said, well i think the stock market ought to be reacting more than it is. what is that about? >> particularly despicable when you have the president of the united states trying to will the stock market into a crash to undermined the economy to get republicans to cave in on all his demands. president of the united states is supposed to sit above all this he is supposed to bring people together and work a deal. you have the president pitting group after group against each other. remember during the sequester, martha? what did this team do? this is same routine. we'll shut down white house tours. they had cameras crews out there so little john any could not get into the white house what he wanted to see on his day off this is what this team does. martha: let's hear from stephen, one more time. i have a feeling you disagree. >> the president has not tried to negotiate with the

republicans last five years is absurd. >> are you kidding? >> he tried over and over again to make a grand bargain. oh, pleaser he tried over and over again to make grand bargain. >> tea party republicans are holding their party hostage to obsession with four-year-old law. a four-year-old law, passed by legislative branch, executed by executive branch, ratified by the supreme court and -- >> that doesn't mean it is not a bad law. >> american people rejected the candidate who the presidential candidate who vowed to repeal it first thing and rejected by five million votes. >> thank you very much for being here, stephen. thank you, monica crowley. we'll head into the break here. thanks so much for being here. bill: why we are where we are, right? ladies are rocking the red today. martha: what do you think of that. >> thank you, bill. bill: new developments now on the motorcycle madness. gang of bikers chasing down a man and his family. they beat that man in front of his horrified wife and child. now that man's wife is speaking

out. you will hear from her in a moment. the head of the country's intelligence community saying america is less safe because of the shutdown. is that true and how could the commander-in-chief allow that to happen? we'll ask the men who was the first head of homeland security in america. >> is the country less safe now or is this james clapper trying to scare people to put pressure on republicans? >> look i would point you to the testimony of the head of the dni. you know -- >> you set it up, are we less safe? >> i'm not the person charged with making that assessment. >> does the commander-in-chief believe we're less safe?

martha: so the family of the man who was assaulted and pulled out of their family car over the weekend by a group of bikers has now released a statement. the lien family was driving on a family outing on a sunday afternoon when motorcycles

surrounded them. there was a bump, which led to his car, mr. lien's car, going over one of the motorcyclists. here is what his wife, alexian lien's wife is saying about all this. our sympathies go out to the injured motorcyclist and his family, however we were faced with a life-threatening situation and my husband was forced under the circumstances to take the actions that he did in order to protect the lives of our entire family. we would like to thank the brave citizens who risked their own safety to intervene on our behalf. this has has become a huge story in new york and across the nation. one of the motorcyclists is now facing reckless endangerment charges as well as endangering the life of a child. they had their two-year-old daughter in the back seat while getting chased. bill: a blunt warning from america's intelligence chief. national intel director james clapper telling congress that the government shutdown makes america less safe as 70% of the

cia and nsa workforce are not on the job because of it. listen. >> i have to qualify that, sir. i don't, i don't feel that i can make such a guaranty to the american people. it would be much more difficult to make such a guaranty as each day of the shutdown goes by. bill: now we are on day three. tom ridge was america's first homeland security secretary, former governor of pennsylvania now with us from washington. how are you and good morning to you. >> bill, nice to join you, again, thank you. bill: 70%? chuck grassley put it at 72%. is that true? >> well, bill, it probably is but i think that americans must realize that at the heart of the infrastructure we built over the years to provide for the common defense is the intelligence community and it's a 24/7 dynamic environment and i think we need to understand and appreciate that every day that goes by, there is less information available, the less information to analyze.

we talked after 9/11 about connecting the dots. one would hope that we don't miss any dots that we might have discovered during the period when we laid so many people off. people don't truly appreciate the fact that it's a 24/7 environment. you're gathering information from all over the world from multiple sources. you're interpreting that information. you're analyzing that information and you're distributing it globally. every single day when i was secretary i used to get what we call a "threat matrix." that is just in my shop. some days it was a couple pages. some days it was a couple dozen pages just confirming again it's a 24/7 churning of information to make us more secure and when you weaken that apparatus and you don't have those people walking point in their assigned responsibilities you do ultimately weaken even the military infrastructure of this country. >> there are some republicans now questioning, where the commander-in-chief is on this. senator lindsey graham is one of them. listen to what he said yesterday

on fox. >> well that is the dumbest advice in the world if you believe the government shutdown is compromising our national security. where is our commander and chief in a time when we need him? bill: why isn't he on the phone right now calling senate and house leadership telling them our nation is at risk because of a government shutdown? that is graham's question. >> that is legitimate question. i think all of us, republicans and democrats alike, my discussion with folks on both sides the past couple days, there is a sense of both frustration and disgust. nobody dislikes obamacare more than the republican party and probably a majority of americans. this is a piece of legislation that when it was voted upon, neither the president nor the democrats that supported it had any idea of the consequences of the legislation but having said that, this may not be the time to deal with that issue particularly when you have issues like the intelligence community was at the middle of the infrastructure we built over the past several decade to

provide for a safe and secure america. bill: graham is saying it is the most irresponsible thing he has seen. he makes the case, you know, that the president says i'm not going to talk to anybody about resolving this or about negotiating. he said the commander-in-chief is letting america down. >> you know, there is a lot to be said about that. this is the president who would pick up the phone to call rouhani and new iranian leader but you call people to the white house and obviously the table wasn't set to negotiate. the table was set probably to score some political points. if i might make a quick point, if you don't mind, bill, when i was privileged to serve in the congress of the united states in the '80s, leaders both republicans and democrats, i had bob michael and republicans had bob dole. there was george mitchell, tip o'neill, ronald reagan. they were all out of the world war ii generation. they were strong, partisan folks. they loved their parties but loved their country more. they found ways to deal with issues bigger than the parties.

now we need a few less far sissists and a few more statesmen. bill: clapper says this a dreman for foreign intelligence services to recruit. let's hope that is not the case. >> i agree with him. good to be with you, bill. bill: martha. martha: how about this story we heard about this morning? a father of seven take as nail to the heart in a construction accident and lives to tell about it. we'll tell you his incredible story and how he survived. and talking about death-defying, a stuntman soaring through, look at this, a 30-foot crack in those rocks. >> yeah! martha: most people want to bike ride on the weekend, right? jeff core list does that. he will be with us in "america's newsroom" to explain, unbelievable. ♪ michael, tell us why you used priceline express deals

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bill: update now on a terrifying landing at new york's laguardia airport. happened over the summer. southwest airlines firing the captain who was at the controls of this plane that hit the runway nose gear first. he was fired. 16 people with injured in the landing. southwest ordering additional training for the first officer aboard the flight. the airline not publicly identifying the pilots. that is how it ended up at lga. the nose first landings violate procedure. i bet they do, huh? martha: an american daredevil survives an astonishing flying dagger stunt in china. look at that. with just his own body to make it through the wind at 122 miles per hour.

unbelievable. wow. that is jeb corliss. fearless jeb corliss, we might add. we're struck bit video we want to keep watching it. bring jeb to talk to us about it here on "america's newsroom." hi, jeb. >> how are you guys? martha: we're doing great. there are two sort of openings in the rock as you are headed through them with your head. did you ever think that the wider one on the right-hand side might be a easier way to go? >> no, no, i always focusing on the small one. you have to pick one and i picked that one from the very beginning. martha: how do you navigate the winds and guide yourself through such a small opening? it is 30 feet i understand it at the spot you went through, right? >> that's basically right. about eight meters which is around like, yeah, 20 feet. martha: how do you guide yourself through that wind? how do you make that happen physically? >> well, it took me about 15 years of training and practice to do something like that. it takes thousands of skydives

and thousands of base jumps and flights before you can do flight kind of accurate in that way. it was complex because of leaving a helicopter at the right altitude, at the right angle to enter that little crack. fly three-foot ballfields, five seconds and basically wasn't vertical. it was kind after crooked so i had to side flip. very technically demanding. martha: wow. it is incredible. you can't practice, you just have to do it, right? >> i was able to do quite a few practices. i was able to do three practice jumps before. before that i went to hungary did augmented realty training we use this virtual world where they were able to create the mountain in three dimensional space. they will jump out of airplanes and fly through that mountain multiple times with each skydive. martha: that sin credible. this is your first jump after you got injured flying off table mountain which is an incredible

place in cape town. >> yes. it was, i got injured in cape town about a year-and-a-half ago. it took me about a year-and-a-half to recover from that accident. and this was my first, big, massive, megastunt since my big injury. martha: well, it is incredible. congratulations to you, and wow, what would we do without the go-pro camera these days? jeff, thanks very much. have a good day. take care. bill: love it. martha: that's amazing. a great way to see the world, right? >> love it. is either side now gaining any real ground in the government shutdown? chris stirewalt will analyze that. he is up next. stay tuned. ♪ because an empty pan is a blank canvas. ♪ [ woman #2 ] to share a moment. ♪ [ man #1 ] to remember my grandmother. [ woman #3 ] to show my love. ♪ [ woman #4 ] because life needs flavor. ♪

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martha: well, welcome to day three, everybody, of the government shutdown. how are you liking it so far? the house getting back into session at this hour, and big questions about whether either side are getting any ground in this mess. welcome back to a brand new hour

of "america's newsroom," glad to have you with us today, i'm martha maccallum. bill: and i'm bill hemmer. a lot of you are tuning in to find out whether or not there's a deal. there's no deal in sight. democrats forced back to the negotiating tale after talk -- table after talks yesterday failed to make progress. republicans a say the president won't negotiate. democrats argue republicans, they keep changing their minds. here's ted cruz. >> four times the house of representatives has endeavored the compromise, to pass a bill that funds the entire federal government but at the same time prevents the enormous harms obamacare is causing to millions of americans x. four times harry reid has said pound sand, go jump in a lake. >> we just have to find a way, and we have to find a path that they can go down. but be they keep moving the goalpost and won't even accept their own number, as the leader said, if they don't take yes for an answer, then i can only

conclude that they wanted to shut down government. martha: so does either side have the upper hand at this point? chris stirewalt, fox news digital politics editor and host of "power play" joins me now. hi, chris. >> how we doing? martha: we're doing okay, and we're watching to see if there are any signs of movement here, and you have suggested in your piece this morning that there might be. >> certainly the fact that the president held what the white house immediately described as pointless and unnecessary negotiations, but the fact that he was even willing to go to the negotiating table after saying over can and over and over again we will not negotiate, we will not negotiate, i don't know what they spent the hour doing if they don't negotiate. but the very fact that the president was willing to involve himself in this process -- martha: yeah, but, chris, they walked out and said nothing happened, you know? the president said he won't negotiate. >> this is the fan dance. in this it is ca bookie stuff where you say we met to negotiate, but we won't negotiate. okay, fair enough.

what happened is that republicans were able to change the discussion away from shut down the government to what parts of the government should be reopenedded and things like should -- reopened and things like should 90-year-old world war ii veterans be prevented from visiting their fallen comrades. there was no fox news channel, americans didn't understand the contours of this in a way that they do now. martha: yeah, that's more sure. >> when you shut down the government, you're not shutting the whole thing down. what's open, what's closed counters. martha: one of the interesting things will be which players might emerge here on the republican side as the people who are able to kind of drive some kind of deal. there was talk about john mccain this morning, you have mentioned a few others in your piece. what do you think, how is that looking? >> john mccain's currency inside his party is not tremendously strong right now, but people like paul ryan, dave

camp -- dave camp is the republican from michigan who leads the house ways and means committee, ryan the former vice presidential nominee who runs the budget team -- they're trying to keep together a coalition of more moderate republicans to say, look, if we can stick this out, if we can stick together for just a while longer, they might be able to get what they've wanted all along which is a full year, stop this cliff diving month after month and get some changes so that the american people can have some certainty and republicans can get out of jail. martha: boy, if they could come up with a way to do that, i think there would be a lot of folks in this country who would be imprettiesed, if they could come out with an actual budget. [laughter] how many years has it been since they actually did their job and came up with a budget? three maybe? >> 2007, i'm sorry to say. martha: boy, time flies when you don't have a budget, right? [laughter] so, i mean, that would be -- do you think that's where we're headed here in terms of are they lengthening this process so they can get, also, the debt ceiling

issue wrapped into part of this and try to come out looking better? >> you got it. and that's the deal here. for republicans, now that they have a partial shutdown survivability plan which is to keep asking democrats why you won't fund the veterans administration, national parks, national institutes of health, keep slinging this at democrats and make them say no, that while this lasts they have a chance to include the debt ceiling that the president talked so much about where the stakes are much higher in an effort to try to get democrats to stay at the negotiating table and talk about what changes can be made to the president's new health entitlement program, what changes can be made to the tax code and other things to try to, as you say, for the first time in more than five years provide a little certainty and go ahead. by the way, it takes us to the next election. not that anybody's counting. martha: boy, that would be revolutionary. we will see. thanks for the reminder, we didn't know what was going on 17 years ago. we had no fox news. now it all makes sense. bill: touche.

martha: visit our politics page and sign up for chris' daily political newsletter which is awesome. foxnews.com/fox news first and just enter your e-mail address. everybody i know -- bill: you actually do. you're not even sucking up right now. you actually read it. martha: of course i do. bill: right on. thank you, chris. [laughter] martha: right on. bill: meanwhile, republicans and democrats trading fire on the issue of obamacare. senator mitch mcconnell saying democrats are dug in and not willing to compromise from the floor. >> instead of agreeing to a couple of common sense proposals related to this law, they stuck to their absolutist position, 100% of obamacare when and how they want it no matter what. but in the end, they got their shutdown which they apparently think will help them politically. and they held on to their absolutist position on obamacare regardless, regardless of the consequences for american families. bill: the other side, new york senator chuck schumer, saying

that the republican strategy is doomed to fail. >> it's a cynical strategy. and like all the others that they have sent us and that have failed as these will fail today, it is, it has one purpose: not to get anything done, but to try to wriggle out of this view that they've shut down the government. martha: a little context on the previous shutdowns we were just talking about with chris stirewalt, there have been 18 government shutdown since 1977 including this one. four of them were just one day long, you blinked and you might have missed those, but the longest lasted 31 days -- 21 days, and that was december 1995 to january 1996, and that was then-president bill clinton faced off with republican speaker of the house newt gingrich and tried desperately to prevent the shutdown from happening. they were very concerned that it was going to be really devastating, and there were all kinds of political ramifications that came out of that one.

bill: what bret said the other night that bill clinton was fighting until the last dog died. there will be votes again on the floor of house, so we're going to watch those with regards to veterans affairs and the national guard. in the meantime, new information on this horrific accident in tennessee. a church bus out of north carolina carrying a group of seniors blew a tire yesterday, veered across the highway, slammed into an suv and a tractor-trailer, and eight people in the end were killed as a result. look at that. >> this is the worst sight that i have seen in my career as well, and i've worked several, several counties in my career past 17 years. it will take some time to make positive identification of the victims, and once we have that identification made, then we can go forward and notify the families. bill: this is right along interstate 40 in tennessee, well known highway. jonathan serrie live on this in atlanta. what do we know about the cause, first of all, of this crash? >> reporter: well, they're looking at one of the tires on

that church bus. at this point authorities are not prepared to say whether this was a tire blowout or some other type of tire failure. but the investigation is focusing on the front left tire on the bus which is owned by front street baptist church in statesville, north carolina. the bus veered across a median and struck the left rear of a chevy tahoe and a tractor-trailer at roughly the same time. that tractor-trailer hauling paper towels after the impact, the church bus turned over on its side. investigators plan to look at service records for the bus to see if they can lend any clues. they also plan to take the bus to some scales to get a more accurate estimate on the weight it was carrying at the time, although police say the 18 people onboard that church bus were well within the bus' safe operating capacity. authorities say the tractor-trailer rig that the bus ran into was burnt beyond recognition. i-40, which had been shut down for quite a while in jefferson county, tennessee, has a now reopened to traffic.

bill? bill: we heard earlier that they were coming from gatlinburg, tennessee. what do we know about the victims from north carolina? >> reporter: yeah. well, the victims because of just the horrific nature of this accident, the fiery crash, it's most likely they will not yet a positive id -- not get a positive id on them until they can bring in a forensics team from the university of tennessee. most likely that team will be using dental records to establish positive ids on the victims. but all of the victims in this crash were believed to be older adults. as for the people on that church pus, they were senior -- bus, they were seniors returning from the fall jubilee which is an annual gospel festival in gatlin burg, tennessee. listen. >> we are thankful for all of the players and support that we've been receiving. it's been a tremendous outpouring of love and support from all around the community and beyond. >> reporter: authorities say there were a total of 22 victims in that crash including the

eight fatalities. bill: so, so tragic. jonathan serrie out of atlanta on that. ten minutes past. martha? martha: some republicans, as you know, have been accused of playing politics when they stood by world war ii vets trying to get into their memorial. >> i think it belongs to the veterans primarily. but it blocks to everybody -- belongs to everybody, and everybody ought to -- it's crazy seeing those people up there wanting to come in and can't come in. martha: now the congressman who was called out answers his critics. louie gohmert joins us live. bill: also at the heart of all the deadlock drama is the president's signature health care law, and more folks reporting trouble on the site. we'll update you on what we're learning and why some say obamacare is not ready to go live. martha: how about story? a man takes a nail to the heart and miraculously lives to tell about it. how close he came to tragedy and how he survived that. >> as soon as it hit me, i knew

i was in trouble. so then i thought, man, i gotta get someplace and get help fast. heart healthy, huh?! ugh! actually progresso's soup has pretty bold flavor. i love bold flavors! i'd love it if you'd open the chute! [ male announcer ] progresso. surprisingly bold flavor for a heart healthy soup. surprisingly bold flavor hey, i notice your car yeah. it's in the shop. it's going to cost me an arm and a leg. you shoulda taken it to midas. they tell you what stuff

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bill: a web site used to sell more than a billion dollars in drugs has now been shut down. the silk road site now showing this message from the fbi and the mastermind behind that online black market has been arrested. authorities saying he ran a major money laundering operation on the web using the pseudonym dread pirate roberts. he generated tens of millions in commissions because he was the middleman for the sale of cocaine, lsd and heroin. martha: well, a top democratic senator is now calling out republicans for what she calls grandstanding at the world war ii memorial after the government shut down, closed off the site on tuesday. the site reopened one day later after gop lawmakers helped a group of veterans to open up those barricades and complete

the trip that they had come so far to do. missouri senator claire mccaskill says that the republicans are just using american veterans to score political points. here she is on that. >> it's a little confusing as to how many people are here who don't have veterans in their states. i'm not sure why they're here other than to play politics on the backs of veterans which i think is bad manners. martha: that's a pretty strong charge. texas congressman louie gohmert is one of those republicans who was meeting with veterans at the memorial site this week, and he joins me with his reaction. congressman, welcome. good to have you here. >> no, thank you for having me. martha: so she's accused you for the time you spent down there of playing politics, sir. >> yeah. and my heartbreaks for somebody with the ignorance of claire mccaskill. having served in the army active duty '78-'82, having opinion spit at in uniform, having been ordered not to wear my uniform off post because of the threats

to people in uniform, i understand. i've stood with families when there was no camera anywhere in sight anywhere with just a handful of people. i have wept with so many military families who have lost loved ones and will continue to do that. she sees veterans and thinks politics. some of us see veterans, and our heartbreaks and rejoices for the sacrifice they were willing to make. i didn't know whether it would be a camera there when we went, but steve prison sew said we've got veterans coming from world war ii, and they're not going to let them go down the sidewalk into their memorial. well, a bunch of us came running. i didn't know if a camera would be, i didn't care. but i knew there would be world war ii veterans who had served their country so patriotically. we were going to be there to do whatever we could for them. and you get an indication as to who's playing what here when you see reid being asked, oh, well, what about -- wouldn't you want

to save one child from cancer? why would he want to do that? it's because she, he, the president, others are thinking politics over this. you got this yesterday from the commander and chief himself you reflect historically on one of the greatest speeches ever given by franklin roosevelt when he said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. yesterday you had the president of the united states go on a business interview on television, and he was told, gee, you know, wall street is taking this pretty calmly x he says it's time to panic, they should be concerned. basically, trying to scare the market, trying to bring down people's -- martha: i understand. >> it is outrageous who's playing politics with this. i will go anywhere anytime a veteran needs me and i can get there to help, and i've done it my whole life. it's who i am. i'm just sorry claire mccaskill doesn't have enough knowledge about the patriotism

that lies in some of us that she should see veterans and want to help rather than thinking politics. martha: well, congressman, obviously, you rightfully feel strongly about it, and i say rightfully because you served yourself, and we thank you for that, obviously. >> well, i never saw combat. and when i see people like these veterans and to have them talk and weep about those who they wish were there with them -- martha: let me ask you this, congressman -- >> i will do everything i can to see that these veterans continue to get in. martha: i understand. at what level are these decisions made? we were told this morning by a democratic consultant, you know, this is just the way it is. when the government shuts down, you're going to have these terrible ramifications, like what we saw at the memorial. who decides what gets shut down and what stays open? >> well, that's a great question, martha. great because i thought, well, maybe some stupid bureaucrat in a cubicle made this decision not realizing that it stays open

24/7. i've been out there all hours of the days and nights, and when i haven't seen anybody in the world war ii memorial who was associated with the government in uniform. and so somebody, we know that it was somebody in the administration, somebody in the white house had to give their okay for the second day. the first day could have been a stupid bureaucrat, but the second day after it made national news, it had to be very clear. and, martha, look, you know, over here at mount vernon, it doesn't even take federal funds, but there is a little turn around for buses, and they blocked that off to create as much havoc. they didn't need a federal officer out there. the moore farm hasn't taken federal funds since 1980, and they go out there and ran off the chamber of commerce, and they hadn't even used federal funds since 1980. martha: it is very prizing that these -- surprising that these places that are literally open air. >> yeah. martha: so it takes an effort

and an expense, actually, to bring over barricades and to bring over some guards to close them off. it just, it's mind-boggling. >> at moore's farm in virginia, they rented the barricades to close down a facility that doesn't even take federal funds. somebody is intentionally trying to create harm, and now the president's trying to stir up fear. t very unbecoming. march a march congressman, thank you very much for being us. we will see you soon. bill: that man's on fire. martha: he's very upset. bill: what do you think at home, is there a better way out of this than keeping veterans from their own memorial? @bill hemmer, supervise alt martha maccallum. hundreds of passengers drowning at sea when their ship capsized, caught fire. now there's a massive rescue effort underway. we'll take you there in a moment. martha: and a man who accidental shot himself in the heart with a nail gun. i mean, unbelievable. he lives to tell the tale, so

why the doctors even were surprised that he made it. ♪ ♪

martha: well, he is lucky to be alive t. a minnesota man counting his blessings after accidentally shooting himself in the heart with a nail gun. we've seen these things go through the skull, but this is incredible. that's his x-ray. it's a 3-and-a-half inch nail. missed his coronary artery by two millimeters. eugene says he is surprised that he did not die from this.

>> first, you're in disbelief. did i really do that? you know? and then you think, well, this is going to be serious, i gotta get, i gotta get in and get it taken care of. >> to start off, he shot himself in his heart with a nail gun. and so, and it not only went through the heart once, but he went through the heart twice. >> as soon as it hit me, i knew i was in trouble. so i thought, man, i've got to get someplace and get help fast. bill: ooh! martha: the 58-year-old father of seven children was working on a neighbor's deck helping him out when that happened. the nail has been removed, and he plans on keeping that nail as a lucky charm. i'll tell you something, bill, it was not his time. bill: right. martha: it was just not his time. bill: what are you going to do with that nail? martha: save it, put it in a frame but, man, it hit him exactly the right way. bill: got a fox news alert now. this is an ongoing story, dozens

of people are dead in one of the worst ship wrecks we have ever seen off the coast of italy. the boat caught fire, capsized off the island of sicily. about 500 migrants from africa onboard, many of them still unaccounted for at this hour. the death toll here could climb into the hundreds. amy kellogg life on that out of london. how did this happen, amy? >> reporter: well, bill, first of all, the mayor of the town off the coast of which this tragedy occurred described the scene as, quote, continuous horror. 94 people so far dead but 200 are as yet unaccounted for, and it appears that no children have been saved yet, only the strongest have survived. what happened, bill, was that the ship started taking on water and then some fuel spilled. people became frantic. someone lit a blanket as sort of an sos emergency signal, and then the boat caught fire, and people started frantically jumping off it as it sank. now, the u.n. says most were from ear tray ya which used to

be part of ethiopia. i just spoke to a woman here in london who fears her sister might have been on that boat, a teacher who had been making just $50 a month and whose husband is a political prisoner and who has a little child. i'm told she left home out of desperation to support her family. she spent a year in sudan to earn money for the trip and then planned to leave from libya. hundreds arrive in italy or its islands every week, many from african countries. to tunisia, it's just 80 miles to the coast and that's roughly, bill, about the closest distance between cuba and florida. bill: amy kellogg, thank you. keep us updated on how this turns out. it does not look good. out of london. martha: we've been talking about this all week since it started on monday, and there continue to be big problems with the health exchange web sites that have led many to ask whether this whole thing could benefit, perhaps, from a delay for everybody.

>> they're going to have many, many days ahead to kind of work out the kinks, but by every measure, i mean, every story that i've seen has indicated that most of the web sites for enrollment around the country were not really operative. martha: this is the federal web site, health care.gov. it pretty much speaks for itself. a fair and balanced debate on this issue coming up next. bill bill also, this book will be explosive, takes a critical look at the issue for the nfl, the issue of concussions. jim gray's on that. when our little girl was born,

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martha: fox news alert now, the senate is back in session as we enter day three now of this partial government shutdown. today there is a little bit of talk that some top republicans could be getting together to act as key dealmakers in all of this as the party seeks a final solution. both sides really still at odds with this whole thing. republicans say the president has refused to negotiate, he says the same is true of them, and we will see where this goes. but there they are, getting to work on capitol hill. bill: day three of obamacare health exchanges and big problems persist. here are some of what we're seeing out there. again, a snapshot, anecdotal evidence here. the federal web site, healthcare.gov, was having problems with security questions when consumers signed on to the site. screens on california's exchange site are showing up blank or telling people almost there. whatever that means. [laughter] and in colorado for the first month people who want to know if

they are eligible for a subsidy will have to call a customer service line first. >> it's going the take a while, a month or two months to really figure out how popular this is going to be and whether they can work out the technological kinks which, frankly, i think will last for some time. bill: okay. tamara holder, we wonder how long that time lasts, fox news contributor, roe khan, a contributor to the windy city live in chicago. tamara, we have your view from new york, roe, we have your view from illinois. what's happening in illinois, roe? >> actually, i think fewer people are trying to access the site than anticipated, and that's good for traffic purposes. yeah, fewer. you're not getting the error message quite as much. but when people are going on the site, they are shocked by the sticker. they cannot believe how much money this is costing. in illinois, bill, you'll be shocked to hear this. a family of four making $45,000 a year, the actual payment for

the silver plan, $742 a month. that's a mercedes benz payment. and i think there's a lot of families that are like, whoa, whoa, i thought this was affordable health care, and it is not. bill: so what you're saying is sticker shock from the people you talk to in illinois. they thought the price was going to beless, is the point you're making. >> free. i thought a lot of people thought it was going to be free. bill: there's that. tamara, what are you finding in new york? >> i'm looking at the numbers nationally, and in california where they're looking at the biggest rollout possible, they're expecting two million new subscribers by the end of 2014. and in the first day they had about 640,000 hits. now, of course, this caused service and technological issues which i think is reasonable and anticipated when you're starting something like this. bill: just to be clear, though, a hit doesn't necessarily represent a human being. that could be one person trying to hit the return key ten times.

>> right, right. but i'm from an agricultural community in southeastern colorado. i was reading in the be pueblo chieftain about how they got 1300 new subscribers in that area. so it's not just people who are unemployed who are looking for insurance. these are people who don't have insurance through their employers, and they're signing up. they want insurance regardless of -- bill: okay. now, it'll be interesting, you know, the whole price, i mean, this is going to be with us now too, tamara, so we're going to see if what we're hearing in illinois is repeated in other states. here are some of the headlines. react to these in a moment. politico: obamacare glitches affect those standing behind obama. associated press: pressure mounts to fix the health insurance exchanges. that will be some time as we just heard. new york times: add demand stays high, officials try to address problems in exchanges. roe, i hi the point you make is fascinating because now people

have the opportunity to judge whether or not this law was better than what they had before. go. >> yeah. this is a really, really big problem, bill. and the other side of this that is really bad is this whole ponzi zeal, if you will, is built on people actually buying into it. once they get on the site and they can't get past the security questions or any other glitches, they go away from it. and if they don't sign up for it, the money doesn't come into the system, doesn't keep the water level high enough to spread the risk. the whole reason for this, this wasn't just built by the obama administration, this has been going on for 20 years, the health insurance and the health maintenance industry wanted this kind of insurance. they needed more people, more money in the system. now this is the only way to really do it unless you go to socialized medicine. so this is the private sector solution ultimately. but if people don't pay, this -- bill: understood. the math doesn't add up. day three, tamara, what's your

expectation? does it meet your expectation? are you disappointed? are you, are you keeping your powder dry? >> i'm trying to keep my powder dry. you know, i think isn't it funny that a conservative like roe who i love and respect and know personally is actually calling this a ponzi scheme when it's the democrats who have been accused of being the name callers. look, i think what the republicans have to do is pick their battles. i have said this time and time again i'm not necessarily a fan of obamacare. but technical glitches aren't the way to attack this. i think what we need to see is how this works, like roe said, the sticker shock. are you getting the service that you're paying for, those kinds of things. technical glitches really? i mean, come on. bill: listen, we're relying on a lot of people across the country to really give us a sense of how this is going on. so you stay in touch with the folks in colorado. >> i will. bill: and roe, you keep in touch in the days to come.

folks at home, what do you think about the exchanges? twitter lines are open now, and have you signed up? have you looked for the exchange? what was your experience? all that stuff is is interesting for us to get a sample of what you're feeling and experiencing at home. martha: it's going to take a while to figure out how many people have signed up and what the prices are. send us a tweet and in the meantime, we are waiting to hear from president obama on day three of the washington stalemate. bill: but can anything be solved if he refuses to negotiate? republicans say, nope, not a chance. >> will the president -- the president and harry reid, they chose this shutdown. this is their battle ground, and he has spilled the beans. it's politics of pape, politics of pressure, and they will do -- stop at nothing to get their way. they refuse to negotiate, to come to the table. they say our way or the highway. ♪ ho ho ho

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♪ ho ho ho great. this is the last thing i need.) seriously? the last thing you need is some guy giving you a new catalytic converter when all you got is a loose gas cap. what? it is that simple sometimes. thanks. now let's take this puppy over to midas and get you some of the good 'ol midas touch. hey you know what? i'll drive! and i have no feet... i really didn't think this through. trust the midas touch. for brakes, tires, oil, everything. (whistling)

bill: we are awaiting the president at this event here in maryland. he will make remarks about the government shutdown and its effect on small business. we understand the motorcade just arrived, so it might be just a couple moments away. that's a construction company in rockville, maryland, that the white house claims has grown quite a bit in recent years, so we'll take you there live with comments in a moment. martha: all right, bill. well, as we wait for those comments to get underway, president obama reputedly saying that he refuses to negotiate with republicans over this stalemate that's going on in washington. in an interview with cnbc, the president claimed he has already gone out of his way, he said, to work with lawmakers on the budget. here's what he said. >> during the course of my

presidency, i have bent over backwards to work with the republican party and have purposely kept my rhetoric down. i think i'm pretty well known for being a calm guy. sometimes people think i'm too calm. and am i exasperated? absolutely, i'm exasperated because this is entirely unnecessary. martha: there you have it. joined now by daniel henninger, the deputy editorial page editor at "the wall street journal." dan, welcome. great to have you with us this morning. you wrote another great column today that has to do with this question of what you call an anti-political presidency of president obama. he says just the opposite. he says i've been engaged, in fact, i've bent over backwards to deal with republicans, and i've tamped down my rhetoric to make sure that i can deal with them. >> really? martha, can anyone identify in what way the president has bent over backwards to accommodate the republicans? i can't think of a single thing

he's done. tamp down his rhetoric? he spent the past week denouncing and ridiculing the republicans for not doing a deal with harry reid. so i think part of the problem as i've said and written before, martha, is i don't think that this president knows how to negotiate something like this. i do not think he has the political skills to do it. the same skills that bill clinton had or that lyndon johnson had. if this were happening and one of them were president, you know we would have worked out a deal by now. a, he doesn't know how to do it and, b, it really is beginning to look as though they consciously want to drive this situation over the cliff so that they can blame it on the republicans and then try to win back the house of representatives in 2014. i think people have to keep that date very much in mind. elections in 2014 are central to what's going on right here. manufacture march i think there's no doubt. i think it's just an observation that in his recent comments he has definitely gone towards the political in terms of calling

out republicans on this and not saying, you know, let's get together and let's try to work this out. i was reminded of rahm emanuel who said never let a good crisis go to waste meaning politically. make sure you take advantage of a crisis that's before you. and, you know, you talk about lyndon johnson and bill clinton, and there's a cartoon that's in your piece as well where the donkeys and elephants are ripping each other apart, and can president's up on -- and the president's up on the balcony looking down. >> yeah. and i think that is an abdication of presidential responsibility. he wanted to be president, he got the job. the american people gave it to him, and i think the american people believe under these circumstances it is the president's job and responsibility to engagethe twok out a compromise. that is what presidents are supposed to do rather than drive the situation to a terrible end, and at the moment it looks like it's beginning to combine with the fight over the debt ceiling. martha: right. >> if we get to the point where we do default on the debt, then

the united states could be put in a bad place. treasuries could go off, people with 401(k)s, retirements would be damaged by that. and you have to ask yourself whether the president is willing to let it get to that point. martha: you know, negotiation requires really both sides coming together in a way that allows each side to save face. >> yeah. martha: and it appears that maybe that's not something that he's politically willing to do. >> well, i think he's politically incapable of doing it, martha. i just -- think back to the 2011 negotiations over the deficit, the supercommittee. that committee, i know, was making progress when joe biden was sitting with them trying to work out some spending reductions or tax increases. as soon as -- but they were not getting there. when the president got involved, it fell apart, and that supercommittee which was negotiating in good faith accomplished nothing back in 2011. and i think we're in the same situation now where the president is engaged but is incapable or has no interest in trying to work towards a

solution. it's hard for the american people to come to grips with that, but i think eventually it's going to have to become a parrot. and i do think, martha, that the president ultimately himself may be damaged by what's going on here in washington. martha: do we have time to play that quick sound bite from cnbc with regard to the markets, you guys? can we play that. >> >> i think this time's different. i think they should be concerned. when you have a situation in which a faction is willing potentially to default on u.s. government obligations, then we are in trouble. martha: the president was asked did he think it was odd that the market really had not reacted all that much to the shutdown, and he said he thought they should. >> well, two things, martha. the government shutdown which is, indeed, not the entire government but only part of it, is a relatively minor event. but as these events move closer to the default on the debt ceiling in mid october, i think the market as we see today is selling off is going to get very

nervous. and if we go past that point, the bond markets are clearly going to sell off. so i think the president himself is playing with fire. there's a point beyond which the american people will begin to get extremely upset about what's going on not only in washington, but this is starting to touch them personally. perhaps at that point the president will see that he has to actually act like a president. martha: default doesn't happen until you actually don't make a payment on one of those debt obligations, so we'll see if we get there. dan, thank you very much. great piece in "the wall street journal" as always, thanks, dan. bill: "happening now" coming your way shortly. jenna lee standing by, good morning. jenna: a little bit more on the shutdown. is progress happening behind closed doors? what could a so-called grand bargain look like that breaks this partial government shutdown? we'll take a look at that. plus, we're also going to take a look at obamacare health care exchanges a few days in, are they working better today. and a new report says the united states may now be the number one producer of oil and natch a

algas in the world. number one. how does that change things for our economy and our standing in the world? a big topic for us coming up, top of the hour. bill: that's a great story, i mean, really, has the world has changed. see you at 11:00. thank you, jenna. is america's most popular sport now in the crosshairs of a cover up? that's what two investigative reporters allege about the nfl and its history of concussions. jim gray, the sports caster, fox news contributor, on that next. for over 60,000 california foster children,

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bill: okay, the president now talking about the government shutdown. this is rockville, maryland, now. >> their jobs, their homes, their savings, everything

they've worked hard to build. today over the last tree and a half years our -- three and a half years our businesses have added seven and a half million new jobs. [applause] our deficits are falling, our housing market is healing, which means construction is improving. manufacturing's growing, the auto industry is back. america's on pace to become the number one energy producer in the world the this year. [applause] more small businesses have gotten loans so they can grow and they can hire just like ann louise did with the help of the small business jobs act that i signed three years ago. so that's part of what allowed this company to grow. ms. -- [applause] so we still have a long way to go, we've still got a lot of work to do especially to rebuild the middle class, but we're

making steady progress. and the reason i'm here is we can't afford to threaten that progress right now. right now hundreds of thousands of americans, hard working americans, suddenly aren't receiving their paycheck. right now they're worrying about missing the rent or their mortgage or even making ends meet. we can all relate to that. imagine if suddenly you weren't sure where you were going to get your new -- whether you were going to get your next paycheck with all the bills that might be mounting up. well, that's what's happening right now to hundreds of thousands of americans across the country. companies like this one worried that their businesses are going to be disrupted because, obviously, particularly in an area like maryland, virginia where there are a hot of federal workers -- a lot of federal workers, you don't know how that's going to impact the

economy. veterans, seniors, women, they're all worrying that the is services they depend on will be disrupted too. and the worst part is this time it's not because of a once in a lifetime recession. this isn't happening because of some financial crisis. it's happening because of a reckless republican shutdown in washington. >> that's right! [applause] >> now, we've all seen the offices locked down, the monuments closed. we've heard about services denied. we've heard about benefits that are delayed. but the impacts of a shutdown go way beyond those things that you're seeing on television. those hundreds of thousands of

americans -- a lot of whom live around here -- don't know when their going to get their next paycheck. and that means stores and restaurants around here don't know if they'll have as many customers. a across the country -- across the country you've got farmers in rural areas and small business owners who deserve a loan, but they're being left in the lurch right now. they might have an application pending as we speak, but there's nobody in the office to process the loan. the sba gives a billion dollars of lopes a month -- of loans a month to small businesses. a billion dollars a month goes to small businesses all across the country. right now those can't be processed because there's nobody there to process them. veterans who deserve our support are getting less help. little kids who deserve a head start have been sent home from the safe places where they learn and grow every single day.

and, of course, their families then have to scramble to figure out what to do. and the longer this goes on, the worse it will be. and it makes no sense. the american people elected their representatives to make their lives easier, not harder. and there is one way out of this reckless and damaging republican shutdown. congress has to pass a budget that funds our government with no partisan strings attached. [applause] now, i want everybody to understand what's happened, because sometimes when this gets reported on, everybody kind of thinks, well, you know, both sides are just squabbling, democrats and republicans, they're always arguing. so, you know, neither side's behaving properly. i want everybody to understand what's happened here. the republicans passed a

temporary budget for two months at a funding level that we as democrats actually think is way too low because we're not providing help for more small businesses, doing more for early childhood education, doing more to rebuild our infrastructure, but we said, okay, while we're still trying to figure out this budget, we're prepared to go ahead and take the republican budget levels that that they proposed. so the senate passed that with no strings attached. not because it had everything the democrats wanted. in fact, it had very little that the democrats wanted, but we said let's go ahead and just make sure that other people aren't hurt while negotiations are still taking place. bill: so you have to imagine that was part of the conversation yesterday at the white house, right? when the president met with congressional leaders, reid, pelosi, boehner, mcconnell.

pretty clear these two sides are a long way apart from each other. that was rockville, maryland with the president on the stump today. there is no other meetings set. a few votes on the floor of the house regarding veterans benefits but as far as we know no other talks officially or publicly. martha: harry reid saying moments ago on the floor that senator cruz is now the joint speaker of the house saying he is the one who is in charge and leading the troops on the house side. john bear may take issue with that comment this morning but a that comment this morning but a strong rhetoric we've been hearing this morn. bill: the president says the longer the government shutdown goes on the worse it will be three. it is day three. many predicted it will go three weeks at a minimum. we'll see if that is the case and back door deals are pull out. we're watching floor of the senate and floor of the house, see what the president says today.

and you? martha: we'll look forward to that. we'll continue to keep a close eye on all of these negotiations such as they are at this point. good news for the veterans because they have reopened the gates down at the memorial this morning. have a great day, everybody. we'll see you later. "happening now" starts right now. jenna: we start off with a fox news alert. president obama visiting a construction company in maryland and talking about the government shutdown and its effect on small business, once again calling on congress to break the budget stalemate. he says the longer it goes on the worse it will be. meeting at the progress with no sides and both side left blaming each other. right now the house republicans are working on a piecemeal approach to open parts of the federal government. we've seen that the last several days. votes on tap to restore funds for veterans and pay members of the national guard and reserves. democrats say it is all for nothing. we'll have breaking details on all these top stories in just